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Metal Gear Solid 3 -- Everything We Know

The mission seems simple enough. It's a low-profile infiltration job -- the FOX unit's specialty, we're told. A Soviet scientist called Sokolov wants to defect to the West, and Snake is to locate and safely extract him from Soviet territory. Snake asks why he wanted to defect -- "It seems he'd become afraid of his own creations." Sokolov is working on a "revolutionary mobile nuclear missile system," which he calls "the missing link between infantry and artillery." This new type of nuclear tank can be operated by a single person, and its proliferation could completely destroy the world's fragile balance of power. The tank is code-named "Metal Gear." So, it seems that this Sokolov, and not Dr. Petrovich Madnar of the first Metal Gear, is the original creator of the Metal Gear family of weapons.

The stakes are predictably high. "If you fail this mission," intones Snake's commander, "it will mean an all-out war." He'd best not fail, then.

Snake and The Boss catch up in their peculiar way.

Now, those are only the very basics, and you can expect a ton of twists and turns as the plot progresses. In fact, it's a given that there are massive elements that are not yet revealed, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were one or more bizarre details that are, at this point, completely unpredictable. After the antics Kojima pulled in Sons of Liberty, it'd be silly to expect otherwise from MGS3. It's my guess, though, that Kojima will not go quite as far into left field as he did toward the end of MGS2; while MGS2's endgame lunacy was somewhat interesting, overall player reaction seemed lukewarm at best. It's entirely possible to make your audience think without completely losing them, which is something I hope MGS3 will accomplish.

Characters

Solid Snake: As mentioned, Snake Eater takes place in 1964. Given that the other Metal Gear games occur in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, that raises a battalion of little red flags. How can a 30-something Snake have existed in the previous games and then show up at the same age in 1964? Internet speculation ran high, with fans proposing wild theories that ranged from time warps to cloning to the proposal that one or the other games was an elaborate dream sequence. The actual answer is a hell of a lot cooler.

Simply put, this ain't the Solid Snake you know and love. It's your daddy's Solid Snake, or more accurately, Solid Snake's daddy. Yes, while Kojima has been coy about it, all signs scream that the operative called Solid Snake in MGS3 is none other than Big Boss, the legendary ultimate soldier who was the villain of the original Metal Gear, the founder of Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND and the genetic father of the soldier later known as Solid Snake. If there was any doubt, this was all but banished by the E3 2004 trailer, which showed the character wearing an eyepatch. A missing eye, of course, is the defining facial feature of Big Boss.

Who is this man?

If you look closely at the trailers and screenshots, you can see telltale differences. The Snake of MGS3 looks more severe, less friendly; perhaps a bit more muscled. His attitude is noticeably harsher; his features seem to be locked into a perpetual glare. While the Solid Snake of MGS and MGS2 is a respectable professional spy and troubleshooter, one gets the sense that the Snake of MGS3 is a hardened mercenary. Based on what we've seen so far, I don't think that this new Solid Snake would get along very well with characters like Otacon. He'd probably loathe him, in fact, which would show good taste on his part.